


Bruises and Secrets

by orphan_account



Series: Adventures in Pete's World [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Fluff, I should probably stop tagging my OC as a character, Multi, Protectiveness, Rose Tyler is a BAMF mom and she's having none's shit, Telepathic Bond, Telepathic Fluff, he is the protagonist after all, it got kinda cheesy at some point and it wasn't my intention whoops, oh well, the Doctor and Rose just really love their kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 21:08:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7861195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose and the Doctor's first son, Jack, comes home from school with a bruise on his face and something to confess to his parents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bruises and Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! It's been a looong time... How have you been? I've been really busy, life (who am I kidding? More like school and procrastination) always gets in the way of writing, but sometimes I manage to come up with something, and this is one of the somethings: I got the idea for his fic yesterday, after I read 'Tell Me Anything' by HiddenTreasures (I don't know how to link to the fic I'm so sorry!) and I've been wanting to write again about my idea of TenToo and Rose's kids for a while, so here it is!
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!
> 
> (Btw this is unbetad, so all the mistakes are mine, whoops)
> 
>  
> 
> *casually throws in an aesthetic because yes*

                                          

 Something was off. He didn’t know what, exactly, was off, but the Doctor knew his son, and there was something surely bothering him.

Their son Jack had just arrived home from school looking somehow sorrowful: he was looking down, with his fringe covering half of his face, and he didn’t even say a thing as he entered the house, leaving his backpack on the floor and absently-minded petting their dog K9 who had came up to him happily waggling his tail.

What was even worse, though, was that Jack was telepathically blocking out both of his parents. He couldn’t feel any of his emotions, which made it even harder to guess what was wrong. The Doctor frowned, ignoring the hurt that was surfacing in his chest at being rejected of his son’s presence in his mind- a constant for him for the past sixteen years- and glanced at his wife, who had stopped cooking lunch the second she heard their son coming in. She, too, looked perplexed and a little bit worried.

“Jack, how was your day at school?” Rose started casually, crossing her arms on her chest and approaching the living room with her husband on her side, where Jack was sitting on the sofa.

“Uhm, it was alright, I guess…” her son murmured, looking away and scratching the back of his neck, a gesture he had learned from his dad, “Are you cooking lunch? Because I’m not hungry, so I was thinking I’ll just-“

“What is it, Jack?” asked the Doctor calmly, leaning against the doorframe and trying to detect his son’s emotions.

“Nothing” he rushed to reassure them, standing up and gesturing to the stairs leading to his bedroom “I’m just a little tired, I just need to take a nap, that’s it”

“Jack, love” Rose softly prompted, grabbing his arm before he could escape and massaging it with affection “You blocked out both of us, surely there’s something bothering you”

Jack winced a bit, hearing the hurt in his mum’s words, and he slightly lowered his telepathic barriers, just enough to let them feel his guilt and fear. The Doctor frowned even more. What was his son scared of?

Calmly approaching him, the Doctor lifted one of his hands and gently grabbed his son’s jaw, urging him to look at him, as he embraced him in his mind, letting him know how worried they were starting to feel. He did, still looking down, but it was enough for them to see the red bruise covering half of his face, poorly hidden underneath his fringe. They both sucked in a breath and Jack winced, moving his hair out of his face now that they knew about the bruise.

Rose straightened, and a wave of protectiveness washed over their bond at the sight of her son’s cheekbone, as she started wondering who could have hurt him like this and how she was going to make them pay for it. The Doctor, on the other hand, was trying really hard not to go on full Oncoming Storm mode and not find whoever hurt heir son and chuck them into the nearest supernova, but managed to calm down slightly.

“Who was it?” asked the Doctor with tense voice, glaring at the bruise on their son’s face.

“A boy at school, two years older than me” Jack answered, with his eyes wide at the sight of his father’s anger, starting to feel guilty as he felt their concern and protectiveness “But don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt that much, it’s nothi-“

“Doesn’t hurt that much!?” repeated Rose, nervously pacing around the room as she thought what Torchwood device was best suited to make that teenager regret what he did to their son “Jack, your cheek looks like a tomato, it doesn’t look like nothing to me”

“Shh, love, calm down” the Doctor soothed her as Rose’s speech became quick and frantic, stopping her from pacing by grabbing her arms and stilling her.

He could understand how worried she was: she had always acted very protective of her family, even before the kids were born. Every time one of their female Torchwood colleagues started teasing the Doctor or even shamelessly flirting with him, she would immediately make it clear who he belonged to and she made sure none ever dared to look at him in the wrong way. He admitted he rather liked that possessive side of her.

But after Jack, Donna, and Sarah came into their lives, her protectiveness doubled, and whenever one of them was in danger she would turn into the Torchwood agent she was trained to be, making sure none of them got hurt and making those who dared to touch them pay for it. She kind of looked like a mother wolf, in a way.

“Who is this boy? Do we know him?” asked Rose with professional tone, trying not to look too much at their son’s bruise.

“No, I didn’t know him either” Jack answered, starting to feel a bit overwhelmed “He’s just some popular kid, I suppose”

“If you don’t know him then why did he hurt you?” asked the Doctor, caressing his wife’s arms with his thumbs, using it as an anchor keeping him from going looking for this kid and making him pay for it.

“Because he somehow discovered that I- well…” Jack hesitated, not knowing how to tell the news to his parents. He’d been planning to tell them for months, but now, after that popular idiot hit him, it looked like he didn’t have any choice but to tell them now. Insecurity settled in his chest, as he wondered about how they would react.

Rose, on the other hand, paled at her son’s words.

“Oh no” she started, feeling as though her knees were giving out “Did he find out who we are?”

Jack just blinked at her, confused.

“Did he find out about _us_?” clarified his father for him, gravely pointing at his temples, then at his son’s and his wife’s, then at the TARDIS parked in the garden. Realization washed over Jack as he realised why his mother was so worried.

Since he was a baby he had been taught not to tell anyone about how special his family was: it was really hard for him not telling his childhood friends how they had a spaceship that travelled through time and space, or how he could constantly feel all of his family in his head all the time, or how he cheated countless tests by telepathically asking his sister Donna to help him out, but as he grew older he understood why he couldn’t reveal something so out of the ordinary. Normal humans would just go insane if they ever discovered time travel was an actual thing.

“Oh- _that_! No, nobody found out” he rushed to explain, and both his parents let out a sigh of relief.

“Then why did he punch you?” asked Rose, looking grimly at her son’s bruise.

“Because, well, I’m-“ he took a big breath. They will surely understand… won’t they? “Because I’m gay…”

The Doctor and Rose just looked even more perplexed than before.

“And he just punched you for it? What is it, the 1200s?” the Doctor asked, raising an eyebrow. Jack just blinked. That was not the reaction he had expected.

“Teenagers these days are completely spoiled, can’t believe they still have these prejudices and stereotypes” Rose muttered, turning towards the Doctor “Do you think it’s licit to use some of Torchwood’s devices to find this guy? I have a couple of things to tell him…”

“Actually I was thinking to join you… Nobody touches my family” the Doctor replied with a dark gaze directed at his son’s aggressor “I was thinking of throwing him into a black hole, but I guess that’s a little less licit”

“Uhm, did you understand what I just said?” asked Jack after a while, still very confused. They hadn’t reacted at all, the only explanation was that they hadn’t even heard him.

“Of course, love” Rose answered sweetly, even as she took out her pink sonic screwdriver and started looking for the setting that would make things (and more specifically teenager’s underwear) catch fire “You said you’re gay”

Jack let out a whoosh of air, not having expected his mother to say that word. The ‘g’ word. It was a weird feeling.

“And… and that’s alright?” he asked just to be certain, feeling the back of his eyes starting to hitch as tears threatened to fall. His parents both smiled at him, realising how insecure he was.

“Jack” the Doctor said, messing his son’s hair up with affection, leaving aside his hate for the popular kid to smile at him “That’s more than alright”

“You don’t-“ he tried to say, looking down as a tear escaped, wrapping his arms around himself protectively “You don’t think that I’m… a disgrace?”

Rose let out a whimper at hearing her son say something like that to describe himself and she immediately hugged him tightly, sighing as her husband did the same, until their son was in a soft cocoon between their bodies. Jack nestled his head underneath his mother’s chin- it was a place he had always loved, since he was a child- and as he felt his dad lean his head against his he couldn’t help but let out a sob. He immediately let his mental barriers down, letting them in, and he cried even harder as they hugged him tightly even in his mind. He had been holding back for so long, fearing of other people’s reactions, but now that he could feel all of his parents’ love and acceptance- both physically and telepathically- he let out all the fear and frustration he had been holding back for the past seven months.

Their husky K9, who until now had been observing the scene with confusion written all over his muzzle, kept walking around them wiggling his tail with enthusiasm, and tired to join the group hug as best as he could, licking his humans’ hands and crying happily.

Rose kissed the top of their son’s brown messy hair, gently humming as he cried into her shoulder, and she smiled as she felt the Doctor starting to gently swing their bodies from side to side. It broke her heart to see him cry- it was always something that saddened her to the core, no matter what was the cause- but at least his were sobs of relief. She wondered why he even thought they wouldn’t have accepted him for who he was, and she planned on finding every guy who ever made fun of him to make them taste the Tyler Slap. With capital letters.

She felt her husband’s amusement as he caught her last thought.

_You’re a bit too violent for being a pacifist, love_

She smiled up at him. With their positions their foreheads were touching and she could see that his eyes were glassy with tears as he affectionately rubbed his hands along his son’s arms, dropping a quick kiss to his head.

_You can talk_

He just shrugged, even as he kept making plans involving a certain teenager and a certain black hole.

After a while Jack calmed down, and when he stopped hiccupping he lifted his head, and was greeted by his parents looking down at him with love and affection.

“I’m sorry we made you think we wouldn’t have accepted you” Rose murmured, feeling as though an higher tone would’ve have ruined the moment, brushing her son’s hair out of his face “But I just want you to know that you can tell us anything, and we will _always_ accept you for who you are”

“It wasn’t you” Jack explained, his eyes puffy and red, turning around to lean against his father for a bit. He rather liked being cuddled by them like this, as though he was a little kid again, it made him fell like nothing would ever happen to him “It’s just, boys at school always used it as an insult, and I guess it just made me paranoid…”

“It’s actually rather funny that you thought we wouldn’t have accepted you” the Doctor said as he wrapped his arms more firmly around part of his family, trying to make the mood lighter now that everything was resolved “With me and your mother being married even though we’re two different species”

“Now that I think about it…” murmured Jack, giggling at how stupid his past self was for worrying about his parents’ judgement.

“Not to mention that you’re named after the most promiscuous pansexual humanoid that ever existed” Rose added, loving the way Jack looked up at her confused.

“Please tell me that wasn’t the only reason why you named me after him” he murmured, wondering just how much his parents hadn’t told him about who he was used to call uncle Jack, even tough he had never met him in person.

“He was a really brave man” the Doctor explained, as he leaned away form the hug to rummage around his pockets, looking for his sonic “Saved your mum and my life on more than an occasion, and he wasn’t bothered at all by what others may think about him”

Jack smiled, loving his family even more now that he felt a weight being dropped off his shoulders. When his father finally found his screwdriver he gently grabbed his jaw and turned his face so he could work on his bruise. Jack sighed as the sonic eased the raw pain in his cheekbone until it stopped completely, and he giggled when his mother planted a kiss on his no more throbbing cheek.

“And if that guy ever bothers you again…” she said with a knowing gaze as she took his green sonic screwdriver from his hoodie pocket, where he always kept it just in case, to start looking for the setting she had found before “This will make him behave”

“Thanks, mum” he said with an enormous smile. Now that everything was resolved and his cheek didn’t hurt like hell he was about to suggest to move the conversation to the kitchen when his stomach growled, making everyone in the room know just how hungry he was.

“You just needed a nap, uh?” his father teased him, crossing his arms on his chest.

“I guess no” Jack answered, feeling more at ease than ever, and being so grateful that his parents weren’t treating him weirdly like he had expected them to “I’ll just go and wash my hands”

He was about to do so when his mother stopped him once again grabbing his arms.

“I gotta ask” she started, biting her lip “Did someone catch your eye?”

Jack blushed and ducked his head, not having expected them to ask that.

“Ehm… Actually, yes” he mumbled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck and looking at K9’s paws as though they were the most interesting thing in the world.

“Do we know him?” the Doctor joined the conversation curiously, casually wrapping an arm around his wife’s shoulders.

“Yeah, it’s- it’s Mark” he murmured, starting to feel uncomfortable. He didn’t wake up this morning planning to tell his parents that he had a massive crush on his best mate, after all.

Both his parents raised both their eyebrows.

“Mark” his father said, rolling the name on his tongue with a cheeky smile “Can’t wait to see him again so I can give him my dad speech”

“Daaaad” Jack groaned, already feeling embarrassed just at the thought of that happening.

“Don’t you ‘Dad’ me” he replied, and Rose giggled “I had my speech with Donna, even if she later said that it wasn’t necessary, and now’s your turn”

Jack groaned loudly, pretending to be annoyed even if he was smiling, and he then marched towards the bathroom to wash his hands.

Now alone in the living room, the Doctor and Rose turned towards each other with matching goofy grins on their faces.

“You, sir, owe me five pounds” the blonde announced brightly, smiling her tongue-through-teeth-smile and returning to the kitchen, soon followed by her husband “I said they would’ve realised they’re in love with each other before summer, so it looks like you lost”

“Ah but you don’t know that yet” the Doctor corrected her, coming to stand behind her as she added the salt to the boiling water for their pasta “We don’t know about Mark”

“Oh, I really hope it’s requited” she mumbled, suddenly worried, turning towards her husband to wrap her arms around his waist and lean her head on his chest “They look so good together, it would be a shame…”

“Mhm” he agreed, wrapping his arms around her “I really hope, too… I was planning to show the TARDIS to Mark…”

“Were you?” Rose asked lifting her head to look at him as he nodded. He was about to add more when they both felt their telepathic bond flutter to life as their other two daughters were getting home from school.

“Come on, love” he announced brightly, stepping away from her to rummage around the cabinets in search of some sauce “We have our offspring to feed”

Rose giggled at the name, and quickly kissed his cheek. In the corner of her eyes he saw Jack return from the bathroom and stopping a second to play with K9, and she smiled at the sight of him, no more worried or scared.

After lunch, she was so going to look for this teenager boy and give him what he deserved for touching her son. The Doctor telepathically prompted an idea involving the Jufikens, a species of dog native of the planet Juno who were particularly over-enthusiastic, and she smirked.

Later, tough. Right now, all she cared about was her family, everyone else could wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh no. I just noticed that I named Jack's best mate and probably-soon-to-be-boyfriend Mark. Oh boy. I can already hear the Septiplier shippers screaming... Anyway, hope you liked this little delirium of mine! I really enjoyed writing it, especially the telepathic part, I do love some telepathic fluff, and I hope you enjoyed reading it! I have so many works I want to start writing, I have a full vampire AU all written in my head, an Omega Verse, and I have a 12 chapters long AU fic waiting to be translated all about TenRose but I never seem to find the right time to complete all these projects... I really hope I'll have more free time to write in the future...  
> However, if you have time to leave a little review down here it would mean the world to me! I always love to hear reader's opinions :) I'll see you guys next time!  
> Bye x


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